Behind the Scenes Android Market Change Irks Developers

Google has been slowly rolling out a significant update to the Android Market, which features better app discovery, and introduces new eBook and movie stores. Apart from major updates, Google also pushes out behind-the-scenes tweaks from time to time. One such change, which was made on July 1, has several developers up in arms.

Google seems to have tweaked the algorithm powering the search functionality on the Android Market. As a result of this change, many highly rated popular apps, which had previously occupied the top positions in the search results page, have now been superseded by irrelevant low-quality poorly rated apps. Some app developers are complaining that even typing the exact name of the application isn’t returning the expected result. Interestingly enough, the web version of the Market doesn’t seem to be affected by this bug. It’s only the search functionality on the Market app for devices that is affected.

Naturally, developers, some of whom have experienced up to 80% dip in revenues, are furious. As spotted by The Register, many of these developers have taken to the official Android forums to voice their frustration and annoyance. Google is aware of the problem, and has promised to investigate.

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Pallab De

Pallab De is a blogger from India who has a soft spot for anything techie. He loves trying out new software and spends most of his day breaking and fixing his PC. Pallab loves participating in the social web; he has been active in technology forums since he was a teenager and is an active user of both twitter (@indyan) and facebook .
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